About

ATRACTion- Autoimmunity/inflammation Through RNAseq Analysis at the single Cell level for Therapeutic Innovation project is funded by ANR under the program Investissement d’Avenir “Recherche Hospitalo-Universitaire en santé” launched by the French government.

Convention number: 18-RHUS-0010
Start date: 01/01/2020
End date: 31/12/2024
Funding: 9,9 M€

Coordinating institution : Institut des maladies génétiques Imagine
Head coordinator: Frédéric Rieux-Laucat

Keywords: Autoimmunity; Inflammation; Diagnosis; Therapeutics; Artificial intelligence; Personalized Medicine

Primary Immune Deficiencies (PIDs) are a group of monogenic diseases related to developmental or functional dysfunction of one or several immune cell types. Individually they are rare entities, but collectively they group several thousands of patients.

How do these diseases arise? Multiple mechanisms underlie the development of autoimmunity/inflammation in PIDs, most of which involve disturbances in regulatory cells, cytokine synthesis and or signaling pathways. There is also evidence that their development can be influenced by the composition of the microbiota, which shapes host metabolic and immune functions and can be modified by many environmental factors.

How are they treated? Onset and presentation of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases in PIDs is highly unpredictable and usually require life-long symptomatic treatments, including immunosuppression or immunotherapies.

What will this project bring? Our approach should provide rapid discovery driven mapping of the pathways involved in disease development, thus allowing to accelerate diagnosis and to improve access to personalized care.

In the present project, we aim at unraveling the underlying mechanisms of autoimmunity/inflammation linked to PIDs at the transcriptional level by using “single-cell technology” approaches. We thus propose a transversal project that uses single-cell technologies, network inference and artificial intelligence in order to develop ground-breaking and transformative diagnostic, as well as prognostic tools, thereby defining personalized therapeutic approaches for pediatric patients suffering from PIDs with autoimmunity/inflammation.

ATRACTion consortium benefits from a highly favorable multidisciplinary and translational environment gathering in close proximity all 11 partners involved in the project and facilitating daily interactions. The successful implementation of the ATRACTion project will directly benefit patients through the development of a groundbreaking, personalized medicine in the context of autoimmunity and inflammation.

The project involves a total of 11 partners (9 academic and 2 industrial). In order to promote the smooth running of the project, the following management bodies have been created:

• A General Assembly;
• An Executive Committee of the Project;
• A Scientific Advisory Board;
• An Intellectual Property Committee;

These committees are supported by the Scientific Coordinator of the Project, the leaders of the Workpackages and the Imagine Institute's Project Management Office.

• Prof. Bernard Malissen, Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille Lumigny, Marseille, France.
• Prof. Fiona Powrie, Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Oxford, UK.
• Dr. Matej Oresic, Turku Bioscience, University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
• Prof. Karsten Kristiansen, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Prof. Marc-Emmanuel Dumas, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, UK.
• Prof. Muzlifah Haniffa, Biosciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK.
• Dr. Richard Bonneau, Flatiron Institute, New York, USA.